Security safes for home and commercial use, and for the storage of firearms and other valuables, are well known. Typical safes are constructed to form a rectangular box having a hollow interior space used for storage and protection of items such as firearms. A security door is hingedly attached to either a top or side panel of a safe's rectangular frame to provide access to the interior space and to protect the safe from unwanted intrusion. Security doors are constructed with enhanced security features, such as multiple locking bolts or pins that simultaneously project from or retract into one or more sides of the door. The terms locking bolts and locking pins are used interchangeably herein. Such doors generally comprise a metal frame that forms the sides of the door (“door panel frame”) through which locking bolts or pins protrude behind the frame of the safe body (“safe body frame”) to secure the door in a locked position. Many such security doors utilize complicated configurations of camming grooves, pin followers and pivotally linked bars to simultaneously move the multiple bolts. See, e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 5,111,674 to Huang, U.S. Pat. No. 5,096,238 to Mintz, U.S. Pat. No. 4,470,277 to Uyeda.
Applicant's firearm safes are generally rectangular in shape and have a hinge-mounted door that provides access to the safe's interior compartment(s). The door is situated in a rectangular frame at the front of the safe. To provide security, the door is fitted with a locking system on an interior surface of the door. Typically, the door is provided with an interior panel that covers the locking mechanism, and sometimes provides additional gun safe features such as a rifle rack or storage pockets, for example, as shown and described in Applicant's U.S. Pat. No. 7,409,790 entitled “Gun Safe Door Storage System,” the disclosure of which is incorporated in its entirety by reference herein.
It has been found that a common form of unauthorized entry into a safe is to pry the door open using the space between the door panel frame and the safe body frame, which is typically quite small. The larger the gap between the safe body frame and the door panel frame, the easier it is to get pry tools into the gap. For example, if a 0.25″ gap exists between the safe body frame and the door panel frame it is much easier to get a pry tool wedged into the opening and begin prying open the door. The smaller the gap, the more difficult it is to begin prying open the door. Tests have shown that the best method for prying open a safe door is to tip the safe over onto its back and to push the door panel frame to the top of the safe body frame. This may double the gap at the bottom of the safe. If there was initially a 0.15″ gap on all four sides, then once the door panel frame is pushed to the top of the box, the top gap will be eliminated and the sides will be maintained a 0.15″ gap, but the bottom gap will increase to 0.30″. Thus, the bottom corner of the door panel frame is often a weak link.
If the door panel frame and safe body frame are not of sufficient strength or configuration, or the locking mechanism is not sufficiently strong, the door panel frame may be pried away from the safe body frame by spreading the safe body frame apart from the door panel frame to create an opening large enough for the locking pins to slip past the safe body frame and allow the door to be opened. Alternatively, a tool may be used to deform the locking pins and/or the pin bar, which may allow the locking pins to slip past the safe body frame.
During testing it was found that the four corners of the safe are the most difficult areas to pry apart. This is logical as this is where two pieces of steel with multiple bends are coming together at 90 degree angles and significantly reinforcing each other. Positioning locking pins in the corners of the door that extend into the corners of the frame takes advantage of this strong area of the safe.
Prior art safes have utilized corner locking pins to improve resistance to pry attacks but have done so using complex and expensive parts. For Example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,088,776 to James discloses a safe door with multiple locking pins around the periphery of the safe door, including in the corner of the safe door. The corner locking pins are actuated with expensive and complicated rack and pinion gear systems, and the corner locking pins themselves are complicated parts comprising a stud affixed to a rack gear. The complexity of the rack and pinion gear system also requires a great deal of time for assembly and maintenance. Such systems therefore increase the cost of manufacturing, maintaining and repairing the safe, which results in increased expense for the consumer.
There exists a need to provide a cost effective pin locking system for safe doors, including corner locking pins, that uses minimal parts, and is easy to manufacture, assemble, repair and maintain.